Now that you've finished writing your first Django app, how about giving back to the community a little? Maybe you've found a bug in Django that you'd like to see fixed, or maybe there's a small feature you want added.

Contributing back to Django itself is the best way to see your own concerns addressed. This may seem daunting at first, but it's really pretty simple. We'll walk you through the entire process, so you can learn by example.

For this tutorial, we expect that you have at least a basic understanding of how Django works. This means you should be comfortable going through the existing tutorials on :doc:`writing your first Django app</intro/tutorial01>`. In addition, you should have a good understanding of Python itself. But if you don't, `Dive Into Python`__ is a fantastic (and free) online book for beginning Python programmers.

Those of you who are unfamiliar with version control systems and Trac will find that this tutorial and its links include just enough information to get started. However, you'll probably want to read some more about these different tools if you plan on contributing to Django regularly.

We'll be walking you through contributing a patch to Django for the first time. By the end of this tutorial, you should have a basic understanding of both the tools and the processes involved. Specifically, we'll be covering the following:

Once you're done with the tutorial, you can look through the rest of :doc:`Django's documentation on contributing<internals/contributing/index>`. It contains lots of great information and is a must read for anyone who'd like to become a regular contributor to Django. If you've got questions, it's probably got the answers.

For this tutorial, you'll need to have either Subversion or Git installed. These tools will be used to download the current development version of Django and to generate patch files for the changes you make.

To check whether or not you have one of these tools already installed, enter either ``svn`` or ``git`` into the command line. If you get messages saying that neither of these commands could be found, you'll have to download and install one of them yourself.

If you're not that familiar with Subversion or Git, you can always find out more about their various commands (once they're installed) by typing either ``svn help`` or ``git help`` into the command line. And of course, `Google`__ is always a great resource.

The first step to contributing to Django is to Django's current development revision using either Subversion or Git. If you're using ``virtualenv``, it's better if you don't use ``pip`` to install Django, since that can cause Django's setup.py script to be run. Just follow the instructions below to use Subversion or Git to check out a copy of Django manually.

Alternatively, if you prefer using Git, you can clone the official Django Git mirror (which is updated from the Subversion repository every five minutes), and then switch to revision 16658 as shown below:

For this tutorial, we'll be using `ticket #15315`__ as a case study, so we'll be using an older revision of Django from before that ticket's patch was applied. This will allow us to go through all of the steps involved in writing that patch from scratch, including running Django's test suite.

**Keep in mind that while we'll be using an older revision of Django's trunk for the purposes of the tutorial below, you should always use the current development revision of Django when working on your own patch for a ticket!**

The patch for this ticket was generously written by SardarNL and Will Hardy, and it was applied to Django as `changeset 16659`__. Consequently, we'll be using the revision of Django just prior to that, revision 16658.

When contributing to Django it's very important that your code changes don't introduce bugs into other areas of Django. One way to check that Django stills works after you make your changes is by running Django's entire test suite. If all the tests still pass, then you can be reasonably sure that your changes haven't completely broken Django. If you've never run Django's test suite before, it's a good idea to run it once beforehand just to get familiar with what its output is supposed to look like.

Before we can actually run the test suite though, we need to make sure that your new local copy of Django is on your ``PYTHONPATH``; otherwise, the test suite won't run properly. We also need to make sure that there aren't any **other** copies of Django installed somewhere else that are taking priority over your newer copy (this happens more often than you might think). To check for these problems, start up the Python interpreter and follow along with the code below:

If you get an ``ImportError: No module named django`` after entering the first line, then you'll need to add your new copy of Django to your ``PYTHONPATH``. For more details on how to do this, read :ref:`pointing-python-at-the-new-django-version`.

If you didn't get any errors, then look at the path found in the third line (abbreviated above as ``/.../django/__init__.pyc``). If that isn't the directory that you put Django into earlier in this tutorial, then there is **another** copy of Django on your ``PYTHONPATH`` that is taking priority over the newer copy. You'll either have to remove this older copy from your ``PYTHONPATH``, or add your new copy to the beginning of your ``PYTHONPATH`` so that it takes priority.

If you're a savvy Djangonaut you might be thinking that using ``virtualenv`` would work perfectly for this type of thing, and you'd be right (+100 bonus points). Using ``virtualenv`` with the ``--no-site-packages`` option isolates your local copy of Django from the rest of your system and avoids potential conflicts.

Make sure you don't use ``pip`` to install Django, since that causes Django's setup.py script to be run. If you do, you'll lose Django's root directory and end up with only the code installed. So you'll still need to use Subversion or Git to check out a copy of Django, and then :ref:`manually add it to your PYTHONPATH<pointing-python-at-the-new-django-version>`.

If you get an ``ImportError: No module named django.contrib`` error, you still need to add your current copy of Django to your ``PYTHONPATH``. For more details on how to do this, read :ref:`pointing-python-at-the-new-django-version`.

While Django's test suite is running, you'll see a stream of characters representing the status of each test as it's run. ``E`` indicates that an error was raised during a test, and ``F`` indicates that a test's assertions failed. Both of these are considered to be test failures. Meanwhile, ``x`` and ``s`` indicated expected failures and skipped tests, respectively. Dots indicate passing tests.

Once the process is done, you should be greeted with a message informing you whether the test suite passed or failed. Since you haven't yet made any changes to Django's code, the entire test suite **should** pass. If it doesn't, make sure you've followed all of the previous steps properly.

In most cases, for a patch to be accepted into Django, it has to include tests. For bug fix patches, this means writing a regression test to ensure that the bug is never reintroduced into Django later on. A regression test should be written in such a way that it will fail while the bug still exists and pass once the bug has been fixed. For patches containing new features, you'll need to include tests which ensure that the new features are working correctly. They too should fail when the new feature is not present, and then pass once it has been implemented.

A good way to do this is to write your new tests first, before making any changes to the code. This style of development is called `test-driven development`__ and can be applied to both entire projects and single patches. After writing your tests, you then run them to make sure that they do indeed fail (since you haven't fixed that bug or added that feature yet). If your new tests don't fail, you'll need to fix them so that they do. After all, a regression test that passes regardless of whether a bug is present is not very helpful at preventing that bug from reoccurring down the road.

Since Django 1.2, the ``ModelForm`` class can override widgets by specifying a ``'widgets'`` attribute in ``Meta``, similar to ``'fields'`` or ``'exclude'``. The ``modelform_factory`` function doesn't have any way to specify widgets directly, so the only option is to define a new ``ModelForm`` subclass with a ``'widget'`` attribute in ``Meta``, and then pass that class to ``modelform_factory`` using the ``'form'`` argument. This is more complex than it needs to be.

In order to resolve this ticket, we'll modify the ``modelform_factory`` function to accept a ``widgets`` keyword argument. Before we make those changes though, we're going to write a test to verify that our modification functions correctly and continues to function correctly in the future.

Navigate to Django's ``tests/regressiontests/model_forms_regress/`` folder and open the ``tests.py`` file. Find the :class:`FormFieldCallbackTests` class on line 264 and add the ``test_factory_with_widget_argument`` test to it as shown below:

This test checks to see if the function ``modelform_factory`` accepts the new widgets argument specifying what widgets to use for each field. It also makes sure that those form fields are using the specified widgets. Now we have the test for our patch written.

If you've never had to deal with tests before, they can look a little hard to write at first glance. Fortunately, testing is a *very* big subject in computer programming, so there's lots of information out there:

Remember that we haven't actually made any modifications to ``modelform_factory`` yet, so our test is going to fail. Let's run all the tests in the ``model_forms_regress`` folder to make sure that's really what happens. From the command line, ``cd`` into the Django ``tests/`` directory and run:

If tests ran correctly, you should see that one of the tests failed with an error. Verify that it was the new ``test_factory_with_widget_argument`` test we added above, and then go on to the next step.

If all of the tests passed, then you'll want to make sure that you added the new test shown above to the appropriate folder and class. It's also possible that you have a second copy of Django on your ``PYTHONPATH`` that is taking priority over this copy, and therefore it may be that copy of Django whose tests are being run. To check if this might be the problem, refer to the section `Setting Django up to run the test suite`_.

Notice that we're changing one line of code to add a new ``widgets`` keyword argument to the function's signature, and then we're adding two lines of code a little below that which set ``attrs['widgets']`` to the value of our new keyword argument if it was supplied.

Once you're done modifying ``modelform_factory``, we need to make sure that the test we wrote earlier passes now, so we can see whether the code we wrote above is working right. To run the tests in the ``model_forms_regress`` folder, ``cd`` into the Django ``tests/`` directory and run:

If everything passes, then we can move on. If it doesn't, make sure you correctly modified the ``modelform_factory`` function as shown above and copied the ``test_factory_with_widget_argument`` test correctly.

Once you've verified that your patch and your test are working correctly, it's a good idea to run the entire Django test suite just to verify that your change hasn't introduced any bugs into other areas of Django. While successfully passing the entire test suite doesn't guarantee your code is bug free, it does help identify many bugs and regressions that might otherwise go unnoticed.

As long as you don't see any failures, you're good to go, and you can move on to generating a patch file that can be uploaded to Trac. If you do have any failures, you'll need to examine them in order to determine whether or not the modifications you made caused them.

Now it's time to generate a patch file that can be uploaded to Trac or applied to another copy of Django. Once you're done with this step, you'll have a fancy patch file that should look something like this:

If you used Subversion to checkout your copy of Django, you'll first need to navigate to your root Django directory (that's the one that contains ``django``, ``docs``, ``tests``, ``AUTHORS``, etc.). This is where we'll generate the patch file from.

It's very important that you generate your patch file from Django's root directory; otherwise, it can be difficult for other developers to apply your patch, because a patch file can only be applied in the same directory it was generated in.

This will display the differences between your current copy of Django (with your changes) and the revision that you initially checked out earlier in the tutorial. It should look similar to (but not necessarily the same as) the example patch file shown above.

This will display the differences between your current copy of Django (with your changes) and the revision that you initially checked out earlier in the tutorial. Note that your patch won't look exactly the same as the example patch shown above, since the Git patch format is slightly different than the Subversion format. Either format is acceptable though.

Once you're done looking at the patch, hit the ``Q`` key to exit back to the command line. If the patch's content looked okay, you can run the following command to save the patch file to your current working directory.

* You should make sure to read Django's documentation on :doc:`claiming tickets and submitting patches</internals/contributing/writing-code/submitting-patches>`. It covers Trac etiquette, how to claim tickets for yourself, expected coding style for patches, and many other important details.

* First time contributors should also read Django's :doc:`documentation for first time contributors</internals/contributing/new-contributors/>`. It has lots of good advice for those of us who are new to helping out with Django.

* After those, if you're still hungry for more information about contributing, you can always browse through the rest of :doc:`Django's documentation on contributing<internals/contributing/index>`. It contains a ton of useful information and should be your first source for answering any questions you might have.

Once you've looked through some of that information, you'll be ready to go out and find a ticket of your own to write a patch for. Pay special attention to tickets with the "easy pickings" criterion. These tickets are often much simpler in nature and are great for first time contributors. Once you're familiar with contributing to Django, you can move on to writing patches for more difficult and complicated tickets.

If you just want to get started already (and nobody would blame you!), try taking a look at the list of `easy tickets that need patches`__ and the `easy tickets that have patches which need improvement`__. If you're familiar with writing tests, you can also look at the list of `easy tickets that need tests`__. Just remember to follow the guidelines about claiming tickets that were mentioned in the link to Django's documentation on :doc:`claiming tickets and submitting patches</internals/contributing/writing-code/submitting-patches>`.